A view of the Alexan Capitol tower from I-35, looking west. Image: GDA Architects.
We’ve been following the Alexan Capitol apartment tower planned by developer Trammell Crow Residential Company for quite a while, but things appear to be moving right along for this 30-story mixed-use project bound for a relatively sleepy corner of downtown at 700 East 11th Street.
A map of the Alexan Capitol building and surrounding area, showing the building’s podium and slanted tower shape avoiding the Capitol View Corridor over part of the site. Image: Rowan Williams Davies & Irwin Inc.
New city filings for the building have provided us with a few fun new pieces of information to supplement what we already know. Well, at least we think they’re fun. First, let’s enjoy that big full rendering of the tower again, courtesy of GDA Architects:
A full view of the Alexan Capitol apartment tower planned at 700 East 11th Street. Image: GDA Architects.
For one thing, despite some earlier ambiguity, we’re pretty confident the building’s name actually will be Alexan Capitol, judging by how often it pops up in the most recent planning documents. Still, Alexan 11th shows up every once in a while, and it’s spelled Alexan Capital a couple of times, which is probably just because engineering-minded folks aren’t paid to worry about homophone confusion — still, the name works either way.
A street-level rendering of the Alexan Capitol apartment tower. Image: GDA Architects
The building’s podium rises five stories above the ground, with three additional underground parking levels. The ground floor has roughly a third of its space dedicated to parking, along with a lobby, conference rooms, resident lounge, community work space, and “makerspace” — as far as I know, that last one’s a first for an Alexan property.
Above the ground floor, it’s all parking for three levels, then the fifth floor is divided between a small amount of parking, 9,176 square feet of office space, a fitness center, a dog park area with a “dog wash” and “dog lounge,” and a golf simulator — that’s something we’ve seen at other Alexan-branded communities before, but it’s still pretty neat. That amount of office space is smaller than we originally expected from the project, probably only enough room for a single tenant.
Part of the fifth floor layout of Alexan Capitol, showing its two guest suites and more. Image: B2 Architecture
One last feature of the fifth floor we think is notable is the inclusion of two hotel-style guest suites, which can be rented by residents of the building who might need additional space for visitors. Lots of Alexan properties have these, since they’re useful for tenants living in small studio units, which is probably why they’re also an amenity you’ll find at Fourth&.
A rendering of the rooftop pool lounge at the planned Alexan Capitol building at 700 East 11th Street. Image: GDA Architects
Image: Rowan Williams Davies & Irwin Inc.
After the fifth floor, the building’s smaller tower component rises for 25 more stories, with a unique wedge shape designed to avoid the Capitol View Corridor covering a portion of the site. Floors six through 29 contain the building’s apartment units — 274 of them at last count.
The 30th floor amenity deck includes a pool and clubhouse, along with a private lounge and kitchen space presumably to be used by residents only. The most mysterious feature of the amenity space is a “speakeasy” area with a bar and poker room — kinda defeats the purpose of a speakeasy when you have to include it on your plan, doesn’t it?
Yep, that’s a speakeasy all right. Image: B2 Architecture
Anyway, we saved the coolest part of these new documents for last. Pretty much every tower over a certain height has to undergo testing in a wind tunnel using a scale model of the structure, in order to ensure its design can withstand the wind loads of extreme weather conditions.
Thing is, we don’t usually get to see this in action — which is why it’s incredibly neat to see photos of Alexan Capitol undergoing wind tunnel tests at the facilities of Canadian engineering firm Rowan Williams Davies & Irwin:
The Alexan Capitol model undergoing tests in a wind tunnel, with its surrounding buildings also modeled. Image: Rowan Williams Davies & Irwin Inc.
A closer look at the Alexan Capitol model. Image: Rowan Williams Davies & Irwin Inc.
We’re not including the results, because they’re pretty much unintelligible for people who don’t know what they’re doing. Needless to say, the building passed with flying colors, and won’t be falling down because of wind anytime soon.
That about sums it up, but unfortunately the last thing we’re missing is a timeline for the building’s construction. A little bird told me someone was over at the 700 East 11th Street site earlier this week drilling for core samples, a necessary step on the road to excavation — so we might be seeing some action at this address sooner rather than later. That’s wishful thinking, but it’s about time this quiet corner of downtown got a shot in the arm.
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